Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Tonga Law Reports

Ramanlal & Sons Company Ltd v Cater [1999] TongaLawRp 10; [1999] Tonga LR 45 (19 March 1999)

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TONGA
Supreme Court, Nuku’alofa

C 278/99

Ramanlal & Sons Company Ltd

v

Cater

Ward CJ
19 March 1999

Creditors’ remedies — application for writ of ne exeat regno — declined

In June 1998 one Robert Allan booked into a hotel owned by the plaintiff company, the Pacific Royale Hotel, and by September had run up a total bill of approximately $10,000. When he was approached about it, Allan explained that he worked for an organisation known as the National Professional Minor Football League Conference Limited (“NPMFLC”) and that his “boss” was the present defendant, Cater. A few days later the manager of the hotel received a telephone call, from a man who identified himself as Cater, assuring him that he would cover Allan’s bill. Shortly after, this was confirmed in a letter on NPMFLC Inc notepaper, dated 29 September, in which Cater stated that he would soon be in Tonga. Allan continued to stay at the hotel until he unexpectedly died on 26 February 1999. Shortly, before that date the defendant had arrived and also booked into the hotel. By 5 March 1999 the total bill was $44,020.12. During the period of Allan’s stay, there had been negotiations by the NPMFLC to purchase the hotel; these negotiations fell through and it appeared the defendant was preparing to leave Tonga. On 5 March, the plaintiff applied ex parte for orders that the defendant be restrained from leaving the Kingdom unless he lodged sufficient security in court or, alternatively, that he remain in Tonga until the plaintiff’s claim has been determined. An interim order was made that the defendant should not leave the Court’s jurisdiction and should attend in chambers on the following Monday, 8 March. It was also ordered that the defendant should surrender his passport to the court and that was done. The defendant did not deny the existence of the debt to the hotel. It was accepted by the plaintiff that, since the order of 5 March, the defendant had paid the portion of the hotel bill incurred by him personally. The defendant told the court that he was one of three directors of the NPMFLC and was also its chief executive. He admitted the letter of 29 September but in his defence, filed on 9 March, denied it was a guarantee of the whole bill and that any offer was made by him on behalf of the NPMFLC in his capacity as chief executive. Any obligation it may have created was between the hotel and the NPMFLC. There were two limbs to the plaintiff’s application: 1) that the defendant should lodge sufficient security in Court before he left the country; and 2) the application for a writ of ne exeat regno.

Held: